Stephenson County Board approves dog rabies ordinance

Friday

Sep 13, 2013 at 12:01 AMSep 13, 2013 at 12:02 PM

FREEPORT — The Stephenson County Board revisited an ordinance confirming annual rabies vaccination fees for dog owners Thursday night, four months after deleting dog registration from the list of county ordinances. It was a move some board members originally believed would eliminate fees for dog owners, but actually created confusion as some thought they were no longer required to pay fees or get rabies vaccinations for their pets.

Nick Crow

FREEPORT — The Stephenson County Board revisited an ordinance confirming annual rabies vaccination fees for dog owners Thursday night, four months after deleting dog registration from the list of county ordinances. It was a move some board members originally believed would eliminate fees for dog owners, but actually created confusion as some thought they were no longer required to pay fees or get rabies vaccinations for their pets.

“There were two separate ordinances before, one was for rabies vaccinations and the other was a county dog registration,” said Chris Isbell, Stephenson County animal control administrator. “Some members of the board wanted to eliminate all registration but state law requires a registration tag for rabies.”

The County Board passed the measure 11-9 after lengthy discussion, a vote to send the measure back to committee failed and a first attempt at passing the ordinance ended in a 10-10 tie.

“If we don’t have fees, the money to pay for dog bites will have to come out of the general fund,” Freeport resident Merry Blake told the board members. “There were over 60 bites in 2012. We had registration for over 30 years and it was good as it was.”

But some board members, such as David Martindale, said the measure is an intrusion of government.

“It’s nothing more than a money grab, taking money out of the taxpayers’ pockets and it’s sickening,” said District J Board Member Sol Detente. “We ought to be ashamed of ourselves passing things like this.”

District K Board Member Mark Diddens said that residents would still have to register their dogs regardless of the ordinance. The fee is $7 if the dog is spayed or neutered, $20 if not. The ordinance was created to clarify to residents that they are still responsible for immunizing their dogs, he said.

“If we take it or we don’t take it, they still have to do it,” Diddens said. “This (discussion) is a waste of time. The ordinance is clearing up confusion, that’s all it’s doing. It’s not a big deal. What is a big deal is clearing up the confusion.”

Isbell said that fees residents are paying are state required. When the County Board eliminated the county registration, many wrongly believed that the fees no longer had to be paid, which isn’t the case, said Isbell.

“We still need to be able to track owners and bites and we’re still keeping information and collecting the fees,” Isbell said. “Nothing really changed, but there are dogs that are not registered now because there was confusion where people thought they no longer had to pay.”

Isbell said that because of the miscommunication, there have been three cases of vicious dogs who have bitten people or attacked other dogs with no way of identifying the animals’ owners. He was hopeful the passage of the new ordinance would clarify the rules.

“Without the registration system, we have no way to trace the dog to their owner to hold them responsible,” Isbell said.